Kevin Bresnahan

I don't know that Savoy was totally misguided at the time. Check that date: July 30, 1951. Organ was not popularized for many more years and Milt Buckner was not the one to do it - JOS was. I imagine Savoy did their research and determined a Milt organ date wouldn't sell. Given that year, I'd think they were right. Now as for that "sell records to colored people and not white people"? No clue what the heck they were thinking there. I never knew that the "colored people" had all the money in 1951.

There was a while when Mosaic sold Francis Wolff prints. Their website had a link to bring up a large-sized web pic of each one. I went through and saved all of them, including the uncropped "Soul Station" and "No Room For Squares" pictures.

Chewy - I see you're over at the SH forums trying to get Steve to talk to you. Good luck. Beware the gorts. They won't hesitate to boot you outta there. Whenever you post, imagine you're talking to a judge and you'll be all set... well, you can drop "Your Honor", but you get the drift, right? As for your inquiry to Hoffman about his work in the tape vaults, FYI, in the past, Hoffman has had some unkind words to say about RVG's recording techniques. In this thread, he had this to say: Steve Hoffman - When I work with a Rudy Van Gelder master I have to spend a lot of time coaxing the breath of life out of there. It's lost in a maze of echo plate and high-end limiter distortion that drives me bonkers. If a mastering engineer just ignores that stuff the end result is less than wonderful in my opinion. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Later on, he elaborated with: Steve Hoffman - Well, it's like a constant high-pitched grating sound. Ever stick your head around the back of your TV? That 15k carrier sound can drive one to drink. Something in RVG's system was dumping a lot of high-frequency overload distortion on everything, especially when the cymbals were hit. Kevin Gray and I figured that it was RVG's limiter that was causing the overload since it was better when the drums were not being aggressively played. Do you have an LP that was engineered by Rudy Van Gelder? Turn up the volume and lightly run your finger over the vinyl, so you slow it down a bit (making the ultra high end distortion come down to a more audible range). Hear it now? YEOW!!!!!!!! I worked up a "system" for combating this in my mastering, naming it my "Van Gelder Anti-matter Generator" (a play on Van De Graff Generator) and if you hear any DCC Gold Rudy Van Gelder CD ( Coltrane LUSH LIFE, Rollins SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS, Miles Davis COOKIN', RELAXIN', STEAMIN', POOPIN', etc.) that I've remastered, you'll notice the absence of any high end oscillation distortion. Just one of those little nifty bits of musical history that a mastering engineer MUST deal with for the sake of your ears. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I've been trying to get him to tell me if he had to use his "Van Gelder Anti-matter Generator" on these Blue Note reissues for months. He ignores me. It leads me to wonder if he overstated this effect. It sounds like all he has to do is hit "Play" and "Stop" with these Blue Note masters. I'd be interested to know if that was true. Kevin

For "True Blue", the TOCJ CD sounds very nice. Much better than the Ron McMaster Connoisseur. On "A Night In Tunisia", I really like the MFSL CD. I no longer have the McMaster version, but I remember the MFSL blowing it away. For "Bluesnik", surprisingly, I like the JRVG CD. It's one of the better ones from Japan. "Soul Station"? Well, I've grown so accustomed to the original Ron McMaster CD that it's become my favorite version. I'm sure that could be improved upon. The JRVG is not an improvement. I never found a TOCJ CD of this one. I think I'm going to pick up Ron McMaster's LP version that's coming out November 11th.

I don't think saying that the 45RPM LPs sound very close to or only slightly better than the "Blue Note Works" TOCJs would go down very well with Hoffman and some of the forum members over on his site I agree with Hans. Not only would it not go over well, one of his high-handed gorts would delete your post and ban you without even a thought. They ban first and ignore questions later over there. If you want to stay posting over there, keep any hint of negativity to yourself.

I think Kevin means the early ones from the 90's, using the original blue Note album numbers (TOCJ-4219 etc). I have the same experience, comparing a few CD versions with the Music Matters LPs. The TOCJs sound closest to the LPs. Claude - Dare you to say that over on the SH forums! To be honest, I was actually expecting more differences. If I were to rank them, I think Morgan's "Lee-way" is the least improved and Blakey's "Moanin'" probably a bit better - but neither was a "Wow" moment. And since they all sounded good, if you have the cash and don't mind getting up every 8-10 minutes, go for it. I have better things to spend my money on. Like that new Victory Kingpin I'm planning to buy someday. I am so glad I decided to buy up as many of those TOCJ-4XXX CDs when I did. I probably have a little less than half of that catalog by now. BTW, over on Hoffman's forum, he started a thread titled "New dual-layer SACDs from vintage BLUE NOTE Analogue Prods, questions answered here.." and - he doesn't... well, at least not my question. I have asked him three or four times if he had to use his special de-RVG box on the Blue Note tapes and he seems to just ignores the question. Well, maybe I'm just "ignore-worthy". Kevin

Someone over on the Hoffman forums put a few of these LPs up for sale for $35 a piece. Just because I happened to have a large PayPal balance after selling a few items, I decided, "What the hell", and decided to see what the fuss was about. I ordered three of them. I got Morgan's "Lee-way", Gordon's "Dexter Calling" and Blakey's "Moanin'". In a nutshell, they sound very nice. Elaborating, to my ears, they sound very similar to the TOCJ CD versions. In fact, I am comparing them (I happen to have a TOCJ version for each) right now and they sound so close, I have to say that at $50, this would not be money well spent for this Blue Note fanatic. And getting up every 10 minutes is a royal pain in the ass!!!!! I am still on the fence for the SACDs Hoffman's working on. At least those are ONLY $30 (!!!!) and they will play longer than 10 fucking minutes before I have to get up.

He has several Arch 1750 LPs listed for sale on his website, www.dennyzeitlin.com, so he must have been successful in finding someone to press them.

Being depressed with life in general, you commit suicide by driving into oncoming traffic on the highway. Shit, and here I always figured on going in bed after a lusty encounter with my 100 year old wife.

It ends on the first weekend in October. It's a tradition.

Shit, I must be a bigger rock geek. I knew "Something in the Air" was Thunderclap Newman and that it was the Starland Vocal Band. However, I haven't a clue who played bass in the Beatles first band. D'oh.

You mean aside from Hank's squeaky reed? It was more than Hank. It's just kinda sloppy all around. Even Morgan flubs a few solos, just not as many as Mobley.

I did send Michael an "edited down" CD-R. Unfortunately, no serious editing, just picking the best take, so every tune has someone flubbing it. I called Michael later and asked what he thought. He laughed and said simply "No". I pushed him a bit, with the standard, "But even a bad Jazz Messengers date is better than some of the stuff Blue Note is issuing today", and still, "No". BTW, he gets more & more irritated every time I bring this date up so I am going to drop it. He was pretty upset when I first told him I got a copy to begin with. He's got something against this date, regardless of how we all feel. I suppose if another year goes by without any change in the EU copyright, we get a Fresh Sounds edition. I always wonder what happened to make that session fall apart. Kevin

I could swear that I read somewhere that Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials Trilogy" ("The Golden Compass"; "The Subtle Knife" & "The Amber Spyglass") were all banned in a few bible-thumping areas. After all, the main character kills a God-like archangel in the end. Can't have kids reading that!

Wow! I wish I tripped over something like this some day.

Speaking of which, really enjoying this Zoot Sims Live at the Half Note 1965... In SH.tv land: Zoot Sims "Live at the Half Note 1965" is an abomination that should never have seen the light of day. Many of the instruments are inaudible and there is excessive noise reduction used to try and clean it up. And what kind of name is Zoot anyways? Kevin

Interesting. Hoffman implies that he just found this tape yesterday (or the day prior to the thread over there at any rate), so I wonder if it's the same "master" they're talking about - or how long Ron's had it "on his workstation." Yes, it is the same master. Ron just got it yesterday. He said that someone definitely replaced the box and reels, most likely because the old ones wore out, but it's the one Steve Hoffman is talking about. His CD mastering notes are in the box and he knows this tape well. He also said that if there was a 6 month search for a Blue Note master, he would have been called into it right away because he has his hands on them all the time. I imagine his mastering workstation would be one of the first places they'd look if a master got misplaced. BTW, he pulled the tape to prepare an upcoming LP release. I asked him for some details of this new LP release and I hope to hear back so I can let you guys know. Kevin EDIT: For the record, I am not saying that Steve Hoffman is lying, just that he appears to have not used the right people at Blue Note to find the master. The impression I got from Cuscuna and McMaster was that they knew exactly where this tape was. Ron said that he got the right tape with one request. They don't know if someone messed with Hoffman or why he got the run-around, but they assured me that the tape was never "lost" on their end.

I heard back from Ron McMaster on the "lost" "The Sidewinder" master tape. He was a bit confused. He hadn't heard that anyone was having any problems finding that master. In fact, it's currently on his workstation for some work he's doing (that I'll try to get clearance to post more on this in the vinyl forum). He said the box looks like it was swapped because the old one wore out but that his old mastering notes for his CD work were still in there. He also believes that this is the master that Rudy used.

I wouldn't worry about a lot of the comments from some of those posters over on the Hoffman forums. A majority are worried mostly about the sound, not the music. A lot of them wouldn't know a good performance if it hit them on the head. I am waiting to hear more about this "lost" "The Sidewinder" master tape from some people at Blue Note. The initial answer I got was that it was never lost, simply misfiled. I guess they knew it was around, but they didn't worry too much about it. I am still waiting to hear what tape was used for the CD issues that are out there in circulation. Maybe it was this "lost" tape?

He was stoned before he was hung from the cross so boggle away.

It's important to note if you got the corrected CD or the uncorrected one. I highly doubt Blue Note is offering a replacement any more if it's the defective one so it's good if you have the corrected CD. If you have the defective CD, RVG and Cuscuna missed some tape warble on the bonus track. It's very noticeable.

This is on every version I've ever spun and yes, it drives me nuts too. BTW, not to ruin a great date for your future listening pleasure (STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW), but Taylor does it again on the title track to Drew's "Undercurrent". I didn't know Taylor's "squeaky wheel" infected some Prestige dates too. Don't tell me, I don't want to know!!

In Massachusetts, if you move out of the house, it's considered "child abandonment" and it doesn't bode well in court. I know of several men who had to sleep on their living room couch for years until the divorce proceedings were at a point where it wouldn't be financial ruin to move out.

If there is no paperwork with the cart, you'll have to pass. Guessing the tracking force isn't good for your records.

My pricing's a bit old. Grado Prestige Black now $60 retail; discount around $50 (see, for example, Amazon) Thanks ! I have a Grado Blue on one of my TTs and it isn't impressing me. I am very close to swapping it out. If you want to give them a try, a high-end model for $60 sounds like the way to go. It's probably new if it's still in the wooden box. See if you can find out the model.